The second campaign was initiated in 1597, with Japanese forces bent on capturing the capital that is now known as Seoul. The first Invasion campaign years earlier led to a shaky truce, but much of Korea was occupied and put under harsh subjugation. Japanese forces under the rule of the great Daimyo/Samurai warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi were bent on domination of China and Korea. Roaring Currents is an account of the Battle of Myeongnyang that took place in October of 1597. One of my recent favorites is the historical drama The Admiral: Roaring Currents, which recounts one of the most spectacular victories in the history of naval warfare. I have a particular fondness for Korean cinema, with their mix of existential dread, high visceral action, and cultural idiosyncrasies woven into their narratives that yield stories unlike anything else in the world. Whatever the case, it is a blockbuster with a long tail - 417 years to be precise.I’ve long had a love affair with foreign film, from my days of watching old bootleg VHS Kung-Fu movies to my explorations into European and Asian art house cinema during my travels abroad in the service. Will the selfless General Yi become the PRC’s new hero, all that President Xi Jinping is not? APEC deals notwithstanding, could it reignite animosity toward Prime Minister Abe and Japan's military-first platform? Or will its message, tinged as it is with “nationalistic fervor,” fall flat (as it did in the U.S., where the film made just over $150,000 opening weekend)? General Yi was the kind of leader they needed and the antithesis of what they had: a ferry captain who, in April, abandoned hundreds of teenagers on a sinking boat, and an out-of-touch president unresponsive to public outrage.Īs “The Admiral” hits the Chinese market, its meaning may evolve.
#THE ADMIRAL ROARING MOVIE MOVIE#
They flocked to movie theaters, showing after showing, in an act of communal catharsis. But throughout the summer, they couldn't get enough. Most Koreans understand that “The Admiral” is cheesy bombast. “The king should follow the people,” he says or writes in calligraphic solitude over and over again. Through mastery of the seas and sheer force of will (shown cinematically through repeated furrowed-brow close-ups), General Yi repels the enemy and steers his men to victory. To make matters worse, Joseon’s only turtle boat, a "high-tech" armored warship, burns down.Īnd yet, against these apparently insurmountable odds, there is a happy ending.
Ground forces being what they are, navy General Yi Sun-shin (played by Choi Min-sik, star of the revenge film “Old Boy”) prepares a fleet manned by impoverished conscripts and patriotic volunteers.Įveryone thinks it’s a suicide mission: a dozen rickety ships versus imperial Japan’s bevy of immaculate floating tanks. The kingdom’s military leaders - aided by scraggly, low-caste spies - get word of a Japanese invasion.
It’s a pre-modern universe ruled by danger and chance, domestic privation and international conflict. The movie depicts a 16th-century battle on the maritime boundary of Joseon, the feudal Korean kingdom (1392-1897). “The Admiral” is set to open in 3,000 theaters in China before the end of the year.
#THE ADMIRAL ROARING MOVIE FREE#
The message was clear: History can wait free trade cannot.Ĭhinese citizens may have a different opinion and now have the chance to watch Japanese defeat play out on screen, in a certain Korean film. Yet on Friday, just days before the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, China and Japan agreed to a temporary détente over the islands each nation claims in the East China Sea. The ancient fight over the Senkaku (Japanese), or Diaoyu (Chinese), islands in the East China Sea is better known and more contentious. Japan, perennially starved for land, claims to own the Takeshima islets, which Korea claims as Dokdo. To a lesser extent, “The Admiral” stands as an indictment of Japanese aggression in the context of renewed militarization, a contested colonial history and enduring territorial disputes. Following April’s Sewol ferry tragedy, the film came to embody a rebuke of corruption-tainted leaders like the AWOL captain and embattled President Park Geun-hye.
That nationalism may be unintelligible to foreigners, but it’s powerfully felt in Korea. In the New York Times, Ben Kenigsberg described it as a CGI-aided, David-and-Goliath battle flick staged “with a nationalistic fervor.” More than a third of South Korea's 51.2 million residents have watched "The Admiral: Roaring Currents" (in Korean, “Myeongryang” ) a melodramatic blockbuster released earlier this year. The highest-grossing film in Korean history is noticeably bad.